The Student Government Association (SGA) voted to pass resolution SR 24/25-06 to add a scholarship committee and senate commissioner. 

Louis Gonzalez, a sophomore biology major from Kansas City, Missouri, created and presented the resolution. He said it feels great to finally have passed the resolution, but there is still a lot of work to do before an SGA housing scholarship can be granted to students. 

Gonzalez said the next steps will be finding donors, forming a scholarship committee and adding a subsection on the SGA website with scholarship guidelines. He said there is no concrete plan yet on how to get donors for the scholarship and some senators still oppose the scholarship committee. 

“It’s gonna take some time to build up some confidence from the senate and from the senators to have a functioning scholarship committee,” Gonzalez said. “If I’m not working on it constantly and making consistent progress, I believe that it might end up like the previous housing scholarship, abolished.”

Micayla McGowen, president of SGA and a senior marketing major from East End, Arkansas, said the resolution passing is great news because it means SGA is moving in the right direction to make a substantial impact.

“Considering that this is something that has started, I want to say, fall of 2023, this is honestly fantastic,” McGowen said. “It’s getting to a point where we’re going to make some progress and there’s going to be something that actually happens now.”

Gonzalez said he thinks the reason the resolution didn’t pass unanimously is because some senators believe the scholarship will be a detriment. He said this is because the former housing scholarship resolution proposed pulling from the SGA budget. 

“We kind of formed it this way, to where it’s not taking anything away from SGA. Rather, it’s just giving to the student body,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a donation-based scholarship so we’re hoping for donations from alumni and local businesses we can give to students.”

McGowen said the resolution was well-written when it was initially proposed and that Gonzalez did a great job making sure the resolution had content that would benefit students in need. 

The SGA president said she hopes the scholarship committee will help SGA find a solution for students who are struggling to pay for housing. She said this is an issue that has become prominent over the past year, so she is glad SGA is making progress toward helping these students.

Chauncy Betts, a sophomore strategic communications major from McGee, Arkansas, is one of the senators who helped create this resolution. 

Betts said he helped aid Gonzalez with the grammar and content of the resolution. He said they thought a lot about how future senators would react to the resolution and he is happy the resolution was passed. 

“We have all worked on it for a long time, but especially Louis, he’s very passionate about SGA and he’s very passionate about this scholarship resolution,” Betts said. “College can be very expensive and a lot of students now tend to continue to live on campus. So, this resolution will help decrease the amount that the students will have to pay.” 

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